HOW WE SEE IT: Board Right On Second High School

A little more than a week ago, members of the Bentonville School Board surprised some in the community by voting to build a second high school.

Mind you, it was a decisive vote. Six members favored development of a new high school to ease crowded conditions the city’s current high school, with more than 3,900 students.

School officials say that’s about 600 students beyond ideal capacity, and the community is still growing.

It is not surprising a vote on such a contentious issue created a bit of a stir. The meeting was the first since the results of a school district survey of voters were tabulated and delivered to board public. The sense was last week’s meeting might be the first of a process to discern what the next steps needed to be, and some voiced disapproval the board were, , clear about the direction they want to go.

“There will be a fight going forward,” resident Kevin Lyles said. “The board is saying it will not listen because 41 percent responded to a survey.

To me that is 59 percent of the community telling the board they don’t trust them.”

It is nothing of the sort.

Lyles was referring the aforementioned survey. The district sent out 9,630 postcards and got 3,936 back, for 41 percent return rate. Out of those, 59 percent backed a second high school, albeit at a lower cost than the previous millage proposal. Such surveys never get a 100 percent return rate and are not meant to decide the issue, but to inform the people elected to make decisions.

Voters last year rejected a 6.7-mill increase in the tax bills of property owners within the district. That millage request was not simple and was not economical. It would have paid for construction of a 2,000-student second high school in Centerton, but also added money for remodeling the existing school as well as upgrades to technology and heating/cooling systems districtwide.

The total price tag, $128 million, was just too much for voters to swallow. But a second high school is simply a necessity.

We appreciate Lyles’ vigor and his interest in the future of education in Bentonville. One thing sometimes forgotten is the impossibility of an impassioned debate if a community doesn’t care. Bentonville is blessed to have an engaged community, as it has for the months and years the matter has been debated.

But this school district has had enough fight.

It is time to stop drawing lines in the sand and recognize the battle - over second high school vs. ninth-grade center vs. whatever - is done.

The debate needs to turn toward how a second high school can best be added to a strong educational system and how the coming public vote on it can be successful.

The overcrowded circumstances at the high school aren’t getting any better and it will take an estimated three years to build a second high school once the matter is approved by voters.

A fight against a second high school, a solution so sorely needed in this 14,900-student school district, will be counterproductive. It’s time for progress to take hold.

It’s now up to that eight-member school board and the administration to develop a reasonable funding proposal for a second high school.

Indeed, their 6-1 vote helps put appropriate parameters on the debate so time is not wasted.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 01/22/2013

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